A pottery kiln in Owari Province (Aichi Prefecture). Akazu is now part of Seto City and occupies the eastern part of the city. In the old days, the name was written as “satsu” (飽津), and it was first mentioned in a document dated 1464 (Kansei 5), but in a document dated 1595 (Bunroku 4), the character “akazu” can be found. In the Kamakura period (1185-1333), Kato Shirozaemon Kagemasa (ceramic founder Fujishiro) is said to have lived in this area and produced Sung-style kiln furniture, and in the Muromachi period (1336-1573), the Matsubara clan is said to have produced pottery in this area. There is a record of Akazu Saburouemon firing an oikote tea caddy during the Tembun period (1532-55), and Kato Kagemitsu, the founder of the Kusjiri kiln in Mino (Gifu Prefecture), is said to have moved from Akazu to Seto, and later went to Mino in 1583. In the early Edo period, the three families of Jinbei Kato, Taibei Kato, and Karasaburo Kato were ordered to produce pottery for the Owari domain and were called the “Three Kiln Builders. Prominent ones after the mid-Edo period include Gesso (Yamaguchi Magosaburo, Kansei and Bunka), Shiro (Kato Tahei Kageki, Bunka and Tempo), Haruryu (Kato Karasaburo Kagehisa, Bunka and Kaei), Shuntai (Kato Soshiro, later Nihei, Tempo and Meiji), Shunetsu (Kato Tadakichi, same), Harui (Yamaguchi Saju, same), and Shunsen (Kato Sakusuke, Meiji and Taisho). While Seto City (Oaza Seto) produced a large amount of porcelain, Akazu mainly produced elegant ceramics and was not economically developed.
